


The Difference Between Cowardice and Heroism

by mountland



Category: 'Allo 'Allo!
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountland/pseuds/mountland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The difference between cowardice and heroism Gruber has started to realise isn't bravery but what you have got to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Between Cowardice and Heroism

**Author's Note:**

> The ending to Allo Allo has always really bothered me as I felt that it made all of Gruber's previous characterisation queer-baiting rather than actual representation and suggested that even a gay mans's happy ever after involved a heterosexual marriage. If show writers are going to base nearly every joke around a character being gay and make it a huge part of their characterisation then they owe it to the audience to stick with it to the end rather than chickening out at the last episode for fear of offending viewers. So I decided to reclaim the story a bit and try to explore the situation and justify it while not making Gruber suddenly straight or without demonising Helga or devaluing their relationship. 
> 
> UnBeta'd so all faults lie with me.

The difference between cowardice and heroism Gruber has started to realise isn’t bravery but what you have got to lose. 

He used to be a coward, he is still afraid as always, but has come to the realisation that whatever he did he had already lost. The once thriving underground scene of Berlin was gone forever; the tone of intolerance had been set by the justification of the execution on Ernst Rohm. The looming threat of paragraph 175 hanging over his head reminding him every day that there is no future for him no matter which way the coin lands. If Germany wins the war then its focus would switch from those just conquered to closer at home. Herr Flick would not miss such an opportunity to remove any man who received too much attention from Helga, the closest person he had to a friend, and Herr Flick wouldn’t have to look far for ammunition to use against him; he might as well have handed a loaded gun straight to the leather clad gestapo officer after painting a target right over his heart. That’s what awaits him if he wins the war, if Germany wins he will lose, his freedom, his life, his everything. If Germany loses he also loses. Last time they lost a world war it was said that that was the last war but the country was crippled so the killing started all over again and he can see no reason why history should not repeat itself, poverty does not breed tolerance. He would be a defeated soldier in a broken country that classed his nature as a crime with no escape. In the past fellow inverts had reveled in the relative freedoms offered in France and Switzerland but if they won his accent would bar him from their welcome as the wounds or war are hard and slow to heal. 

The weight of this realisation had weighed heavy on his mind at first but it had become a release. He was a dead man walking, if you cannot win then you have nothing left to loose, all there was left to do was live. For the first time he let his heart ruled his head and so he paints pictures in his head of what never can be, laughs and sings and plays piano knowing this is the happiest he has ever been and the happiest he ever will be. He flirts with Rene who is intoxicating, his heart for the first time uncaged runs wild, filling him to bursting with the joys of infatuation and unrequited love. It doesn’t even hurt just burns and aches in the best way possible, a feeling he is addicted to and could never give up even if he wanted to. Rene however has much to lose, his life, his home, his wife, his mistress, his other mistress and his reputation and so Gruber cannot begrudge his cowardice nor think badly of him when the mere thought of him causes his heart to sing in a way that he had only heard of before in poems of old. The thought of dying is what makes him live and he no longer fears death. He cannot imagine himself as an old man, it’s something that is not in his future it is instead the thoughts of what will happen if he lives that keep him up at night chilling him to the bone, but he pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind, life is for the living and he has no future to fear. He lives by his heart and no one else’s rules, he helps the enemy, hides his friends and lies to fellow officers to keep them safe, he laughs, he cries, he loves and that is enough for him.

Years later the unthinkable happens the war is over, Germany has lost and his heart still beats and suddenly he has everything to lose and everything to fear. His heart has grown strong with its freedom but his fear is stronger, so he cages his heart again and puts a ring on Helga’s finger and a baby in her belly. He loves her as all true friends love one another but his heart never sings for her like it did for another in a small French café. Helga knows this and accepts this, there are no lies between them, both of them have loved and lost and want nothing more than a friend to fight the fear of being alone. Gruber finds to his surprise that friendship is not less than love just different. The pain of his choice dulls and fades to nothing at the first cry of his firstborn, he weeps upon seeing his daughter for the first time as the one thing he never dreamt he would have, a family, grows around him. He loves them with the whole of his being and would never swap them for anything in the world but sometimes at night pictures of what could have been and what could never have been drift into his head, some of these thoughts lead to the birth of his first son. Helga doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when he names the little boy Rene, a name that scandalises his parents and parents in law who all expected their first grandson to take a strong German name. He worries that his lack of non-platonic love for Helga will hurt her but the love from their children and his undying friendship is all she ever asks for, whether this is all her heart wants he will never know. 

He is old and grey when he sees it on the news, a prominent leader of the French resistance has passed away today at the age of 83 years old. He knows who it is before the name is said. His children grown up and with children of their own now cannot understand why their father, the decorated German soldier weeps so bitterly for the leader of the enemy he fought all those years ago and they never will. How could he tell them that their father has only loved one person in the way that they love their spouses and that the person he loved, and still loves, is not their mother. Helga is the only one who understands, squeezing his arm comfortingly, knowing she will never be able to mend his broken heart.

Five years later, surrounded by his loving family, Hubert Gruber passes away. The last words on his lips are “Rene”. “What was it he wanted to say to me, was he trying to say goodbye?” his eldest son asks Helga at the funeral, “No,” she replies “I think he was saying hello again”.


End file.
